Thursday, March 11, 2010

Boring Story #2

Terry was exhausted. It had been four days and all he had found was an eight year old who already lost an arm. Supplies were getting low and that scared him. The desiccated skyline loomed over him with the blinking caution light pulsing obsessively on the corner. Shattered windows and tipped over garbage cans surrounded his lumbering steps as he made his way back to the hang out space. Such tedium. He would eat and then go back to the room where the other bald ones would just huddle together like bats in a cave. He made his way back to his spot and felt the pulse of the other sweaty bodies next to him. It was like a night club without music. Just a dank sweaty closet in an abandoned bottling plant. He scooched into position and began to undulate his body as well. He gyrated as his bald head bounced back and forth. His mouth opened slightly and he began, with zen like attunement, to moan.

The next evening arrived. He was hungry. His right leg ached from sliding along the floor as he walked. His feet suffered from the numerous calluses he had built up since he had been bitten at the Exxon station three weeks back. Along with the other baldies, he made his way out of the bottling plant and out onto the streets. He headed north toward the suburbs. He liked them. It took an incredibly long time to get there, but he enjoyed the feel of strip malls, cul de sacs and the wide streets. Cities were too dense. Plus, suburbs had meat.

The meat would tend to stay there. They thought of it more like home and if you listened carefully, you could hear sobbing in the parks and playgrounds. You could hear the banging of nails as they still tried to keep you out. Terry would take the freeway to get there. He was just a slow moving car really. If he wasn’t able to make it back before dawn, there were plenty of hang out spaces for the baldies. One was in the back storage area of a CostCo. He liked that one because it smelled like cardboard. There was also the super popular one at the cinemas, but he hated that because the rooms were on a gradient which hurt his bad leg. Plus, when the hang out spaces were popular, he tended to have the unfortunately luck of undulating next to extremely hairy sweaty baldies that took up too much space (both physically and psychologically).

He exited off the freeway into a quiet suburb. The grassy side of the off ramp greeted him. The vines just making their way up the stop signs. One day, he thought, these signs will be covered in vines. One day, after the meat runs out, we will live in a garden again. He didn’t eat vegetables but he wanted to. He lumbered past the Dunken Donuts, and the Taco Bell, past the Walgreens, and the Wells Fargo Bank. He made his way down a side street where could hear the faint sounds of nails pounding into wood. There was fear there. He began his moaning and pushed on coming closer to the sky blue Victorian house with the Ford Bronco parked out front. The curtain abruptly moved as he watched a four by eight sheet of plywood go up suddenly in front of the window. Muffled screams could be heard as he made his way across the front lawn. I hope this works out, he thought as he tried to punch threw the plywood.

His arms were tired and his punches hardly made a dent. The meat sat safely inside. He made his way toward the back yard hoping they had left the back door open but no such luck. The house was secured. He spotted a tabbie cat darting into the neighbor’s yard. They were much too fast for him. The sky was turning light blue and he realized he would be making his way to the Clearview Cinema to undulate. He turned around and headed back.

About Nato Thompson

I work as a chief curator at a public art (I like to think cultural) organization called Creative Time. I tend to privilege projects that deal more directly with urgent social issues of our time (not because I am hell bent on political art, but I simply feel that the urgency of our times demands a more serious and radical form of cultural production). I was raised by loving hippie parents and had a wonderful smiling brother, Eli. I tend to use this blog for musings on subjects ranging from contemporary art, to political theories, to philosophical musings, to bad jokes, to sweet thoughts, to dreams. I would love for you to comment.